26:510:508:01 / 26:050:521:02 Topics in Transnational History: Gender and Sexuality Fall 2021
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26:510:508:01 / 26:050:521:02 Topics in Transnational History: Gender and Sexuality Fall 2021 Professor Timothy Stewart-Winter (pronouns he/him/his) Class Meeting Times: WeDnesDays, 5:30-8:10PM Class Location: Zoom anD Canvas Office Hours (use my Zoom room): TuesDays 2:30-3:30PM and by appointment Email: [email protected] Course Description: This graduate seminar will examine gender, sexuality, and power, with particular attention to the flow of people, capital, goods, and knowledge across national borders. Our focus will be on how transnational approaches have reshapeD scholarly unDerstanDings of twentieth-century U.S. women’s anD LGBTQ history. How Does Decentering the nation-state as a category of historical analysis change the way we interpret pleasure, danger, emboDiment, anD desire in the past? ReaDings will examine migration, colonialism and postcolonialism, violence, resource extraction, sickness anD health, social movements, resistance, anD transnational urban cultures anD subcultures. Technology This is a remote synchronous course that will use Canvas and Zoom. The course Canvas site is where you will finD the Zoom link for each week’s class and where you’ll submit all written work. Please be sure to turn on notifications for announcements and emails that I senD from Canvas. To access Canvas, please see https://canvas.rutgers.edu. For information on how to use Canvas, see https://canvas.rutgers.edu/students/getting-starteD-in-canvas-stuDents. If you have any problems, please contact Canvas help at [email protected]. During our remote synchronous Discussions, please silence cell phones, put phones and other devices away, anD turn off notifications. Treat our discussions as you would an in-person seminar: The required materials anD our conversation are your focus for these perioDs each week. If at all possible, use a computer rather than a tablet/phone, so that you can type in the chat box and view any shared files. Required Books It is important that you have the requireD reaDings with you during our discussions, whether that means having the book on hand or having multiple windows open. There are twelve books that you will need to buy or borrow for this course (we will reaD them in their entirety): • Jen Manion, Female Husbands: A Trans History (Cambridge University Press, 2020) [ISBN 978-1108718271] • Clare Sears, Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco (Duke University Press, 2015) [ISBN 978-0822357582] • Julio Capó Jr., Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami Before 1940 (University of North Carolina Press, 2017) [ISBN 978-1469635200] • Katherine M. Marino, Feminism for the Americas: The Making of an International Human Rights Movement (University of North Carolina Press, 2019) [ISBN 978-1469661520] • Keisha N. Blain, Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) [ISBN 978-0812224597] • Laura Briggs, Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico (University of California Press, 2002) [ISBN 978-0520232587] • Mary Louise Roberts, What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France (University of Chicago Press, 2013) [ISBN 978-0226923116] • Ashley D. Farmer, Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era (University of North Carolina Press, 2017) [ISBN 978-1469654737] • Emily K. Hobson, Lavender and Red: Liberation and Solidarity in the Gay and Lesbian Left (University of California Press, 2016) [ISBN 978-0520279063] • Ana Raquel Minian, Undocumented Lives: The Untold Story of Mexican Migration (HarvarD University Press, 2018) [ISBN 978-0674244832] • Aren Z. Aizura, Mobile Subjects: Transnational Imaginaries of Gender Reassignment (Duke University Press, 2018) [ISBN 978-1478001560] • Elliott H. Powell, Sounds from the Other Side, Afro–South Asian Collaborations in Black Popular Music (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) [ISBN 978-1517910044] These books have been ordered at the Rutgers University-Newark Bookstore, locateD in the Hahne’s BuilDing at 42 Halsey Street in Newark (https://newark-rutgers.bncollege.com/shop/rutgers- newark/home). Of course, you should feel free to purchase the books as inexpensively as possible. Course Requirements I. Attendance and Participation. This course requires your attendance and consistent participation in synchronous class discussions. Your comments must suggest that you’ve done the reaDing thoughtfully and thoroughly, and that you are not making dinner, responding to emails, or engaging in any other tasks during our remote discussions. Please have your camera on for these meetings. This is not a passive learning environment, anD simply showing up on Zoom is not enough. Because participation is so important, missing more than two classes will affect your final grade. If you miss one synchronous meeting, that will be an excuseD absence, no questions askeD. If you miss more than one, you must be in touch with me for it to be an excused absence. If you miss four classes, you will automatically fail the course. If you have questions about how best to participate in class, please ask. Communication is key: Please feel free to be in touch at any time to let me know about anything going on that may affect your participation in the class. It’s always best to be in touch early about potential problems. Office Hour meeting: As part of your participation graDe, you are required to meet with me on Zoom for about 20-30 minutes sometime between September 8 and September 29, so that we can discuss your academic interests as well as any academic concerns you might have. This meeting is especially important this semester, given that the class is being held remotely. I will hold extra “office hours” for this purpose; you can either sign up for a slot on Zoom or email me to set up another time. Either way, we will meet some time by September 29 so that we can get to know each other somewhat early in the semester. II. Response Papers. Because the course DepenDs on thoughtful engagement with the material, stuDents will prepare submit a response paper of 1-2 single-spaced pages for 8 of the class meetings after the first one (your choice) addressing the readings assigned for that week. Papers must be submitted on Canvas by noon on the day of class. Your response should refer to the assigned texts—either by paraphrasing in your own words or by brief quotations; regardless, you should follow each reference with a parenthetical citation of the page number(s) in the book’s print edition to which you are referring. If you cite works other than the texts assigned for that week, use footnotes in Chicago style (for a basic guide, see http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html); no bibliography is neeDeD. 2 As you reaD, try to iDentify the major argument or thesis of each chapter of every book, as well as the major argument or thesis of the book as a whole. If you do that, you will finD it much easier to write a response paper of substance. To structure your response paper, you could note three ideas, arguments or concepts of substance (not small factual matters) that you learned from the reading, one of which you can consider at length. You could also write about a few ideas or arguments (or even one idea or argument) that seemeD confusing or unclear in the reaDing. Again, the most important thing is to responD to a major theme or argument of the book, rather than some small factual statement made in the book. III. Syllabus Assignment. You will be asked to construct a polished syllabus, on a theme of your choice relateD to the course, that you could hypothetically use in an undergraduate or high school class, together with a short “justification” essay of approximately 3 pages explaining your choices. To make sure you’re on the right track, you will submit a proposal (due Mon, Nov 1) and a rough draft (due Mon, Nov 22) and I’ll give you feeDback on each. The final syllabus anD justification essay are due on Mon, Dec 20. To help you with the syllabus, Natalie Borisovets, the history librarian at Dana Library, has createD a special research guide (https://libguides.rutgers.edu/gender) to Rutgers library materials that may be suitable for you to use as you construct your syllabus. Grading AttenDance anD Participation: 20% Critical Response Papers: 50% Syllabus and Lesson Plan Assignment: 30% SCHEDULE: All reaDings anD assignments are subject to change. For readings that aren’t books, PDFs are on the course Canvas site under Files. 1) Wed, Sep 1: Introduction: What Is Transnational History? • Laura Briggs, GlaDys McCormick, anD J. T. Way, “Transnationalism: A Category of Analysis,” American Quarterly 60:3 (September 2008), 625-648 • Amy Stanley, “MaiDservants’ Tales: Narrating Domestic anD Global History, 1600-1900,” American Historical Review 121:2 (April 2016): 437-460 [WeD, Sep 8: NO CLASS due to Rutgers Change in Designation of Class Days] 2) Wed, Sep 15: Intimacies • Jen Manion, Female Husbands: A Trans History (Cambridge University Press, 2020) 3) Wed, Sep 22: Borders • Clare Sears, Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco (Duke University Press, 2015) 4) Wed, Sep 29: Migration, Tourism, and the City • Julio Capó Jr., Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami Before 1940 (North Carolina, 2017) 5) Wed, Oct 6: Feminism • Katherine M. Marino, Feminism for the Americas: The Making of an International Human Rights Movement (North Carolina, 2019) 3 6) Wed, Oct 13: Black Freedom Struggles • Keisha N. Blain, Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom (Penn, 2018) 7) Wed, Oct 20: US Empire • Laura Briggs, Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico (California, 2002) 8) Wed, Oct 27: War and Occupation • Mary Louise Roberts, What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France (Chicago, 2013) Mon, Nov 1: Syllabus proposal Due 9) Wed, Nov 3: Revolutionaries • Ashley D.